Kazuto walked into the living room the next morning and on the TV screen was the report on the death of Nobuyuki Sugou. He couldn't help but smirk as they said, "The perpetrator has not been caught yet. If anyone has any information on the whereabouts of the assassin, please call this number on the screen."

Midori turned off the TV and asked, "Who would do such a thing?"

Kazuto shrugged. "I don't know. But I have a feeling that this won't be the only murder. If anything, it's only the beginning."

Kazuto turned to the kitchen and heard his aunt say, "There is a pot of steamed rice if you are feeling hungry, Kazuto."

"Thanks!" Kazuto called to his aunt before making himself a bowl of Steamed Rice.

As he began eating, he smirked slightly when he heard the giggling of his daughter hiding behind the wall.

"Yui," Kazuto spoke. "What are you giggling about?"

Yui's giggling stopped and Kazuto turned to look at her. The young child looked like a deer caught in the headlights of a car.

"What did you do?" he asked her, an eyebrow raised.

"Um," Yui looked away from her father. "Auntie is about to be um..."

Kazuto cracked a smile at Yui.

"You pranked your aunt, didn't you?" he asked her.

Yui nodded. Kazuto just shook his head in amusement and looked at his daughter, "I found where Mama is. I'll be going there and getting her back. I promise you this much Yui, we will be a family again."

Yui looked at him with wide eyes as tears began to gather at the edges.

"R-Really?" the child spoke. Her voice was as soft as a whisper. "M-Mama is coming back?"

Kazuto nodded and told her, "She is, but I have no idea what changed with her. So it might be some time before we get her back fully. Alright?"

Yui understood a bit of what her Papa was telling her, and she couldn't wait till she could get her Mama back.

After Kazuto ate his breakfast, he went up to his room and picked up his Nerve Gear. He looked at it with determination in his dark eyes.

'I will get you back, Asuna,' he thought. 'I swear it on my ancestors that I will find you and I will free you from whatever prison you are in!'

He then picked up the newest VRMMORPG game called Alfheim Online, placed the game in the computer, and then plugged in his Nerve Gear.

"Link... Start!" he said and multiple colored lights were all he could see next.

World Tree, Alf-Palace

"Princess Titania," a maid said. "Please get up. Your father, King Oberon, wants to see you."

A young woman with chestnut-colored hair and pointy ears groaned as she didn't want to get out of the bed.

"Please Princess," the maid said urgently. "Your father will be expecting you any minute now!"

"Oh alright," Titania said, her eyes flashed with irritation. "Tell father that I will be with him shortly."

"At once your highness," the maid bowed low before walking out of the room.

"Damn maid interrupting my sleep when I was having that beautiful dream," Titania muttered angrily. "Why did that man and child look familiar though..."

She dreamed of a cabin in the woods. And of a black-haired boy with dark eyes that showed both love and hidden darkness that only a trained killer would have as well as a young girl with hair as dark as the boy's and a mix of their eye color, along with a mix of their facial features. And yet, he looked at her and at the young child with such love that it made her feel safe and warm to be in that man's arms. Even if he was a trained killer.

"Oh well," Titania said to herself. "It's not like I'll ever meet him anyway. They probably don't even exist..."

Not long after, Titania found herself in the palace throne room. Her father, a tall man with pointy ears, auburn hair, was sitting on the throne in the back of the room, a scepter in his hands. The scepter was gold in color and had a golden sphere on the top that had glowing lines crisscrossing it as it was slowly turning clockwise. Titania, like always, had a chill of fear run down her spine when she saw the sphere. She didn't know what it does, but she knew it was extremely dangerous and extremely powerful.

"You wanted to see me, father?" Titania asked.

"Yes my daughter," Oberon said. "There is someone who will be entering our kingdom."

"You mean the game," Titania stated bluntly. "You know you don't have to act this way with me, father. I already know about this place and what you did to keep me alive for the past year."

Titania's father smiled softly at her.

"Of course," Oberon said. "Now then, this man is dangerous. Very dangerous. He will do anything to have this game destroyed. To have me destroyed. If you come across this man then you must run from him. If you do not follow this, then I will have no choice but to keep you here in this place."

Titania sighed.

"Yes father," she said. "By chance, what does this man look like?"

"I do not know," Oberon told her. "Just that he was once called Shinigami for his role in the death of an entire guild in the past. He wears black. This is all I know."

"So he might be a Spriggan then?" Titania asked her father. "I'll stay away from the Spriggan territories father. I can promise you that."

Outside of the Fae Territories

Kirito, after choosing his race, appeared not too far away from some old ruins in the middle of a forest. and saw that he had an objective already.

"Get to the highest point huh?" Kirito read from his screen. "Just like old times."

Kirito smirked and began running towards a tree before climbing it and then he began to jump from a branch to another branch not losing even a bit of speed. He hopped from branch to branch, still going fast. Every movement he made wasn't even being calculated. It was all instinctual. He soon arrived at the ruins and looked up where he saw a wooden outcropping where he could look at the entire forest and then some.

Kirito smirked before running towards the temple in the middle of the ruins and began to climb it. Using its broken ledges as footholds and handholds. He soon reached the top and slowly crouched on the wooden outcropping. He saw the entire forest surrounding him and even saw a small town to the north of the temple.

He then got a new alert from the game and saw that the map was updated. He then saw a pile of hay on the ground that he didn't notice earlier.

'Guess I was too busy trying to complete the quest to notice,' Kirito thought to himself.

He then leaped off of the wooden outcropping, twisted around so his back was facing the hay pile before he landed safely on the hay. He exited the hay and saw a middle-aged man with graying hair and wearing white assassin robes.

"Good evening Kirito," the man said. "It has been some time since we last spoke and I needed to warn you of a few things."

"Who are you?" Kirito asked immediately bringing up his guard. "How do you know who I am?"

The man thought for a moment.

"Who am I?" he repeated Kirito's question. "I am neither dead nor alive. But at the same time, I know I am both dead and alive."

"Sage," a woman's voice said. "You and I both know that he will figure it out eventually. Save us the trouble and tell him."

The man, Sage, sighed and said, "Fine Minerva. Fine. Ruin my fun, why don't you."

He then looked at Kirito and said, "It appears that I should tell you who I am. You may not recognize me, but it's Kayaba Akihiko."

"Y-You're dead!" Kirito exclaimed. "I killed you and felt my blade enter your heart and your lung!"

Kayaba chuckled.

"That you did," the SAO creator said. "You did succeed in your mission. However, I was saved by some people and they helped me download my consciousness into the world wide web. Or more specifically, the VR world."

"That we did," the feminine voice from earlier spoke up. "Hello, Kirito. I have been watching you for quite some time now. My name is Minerva and I need your help."

"Why?" Kirito asked. Something about this voice feels familiar to him. "Because the woman you love is in danger. As is the entirety of the Virtual World, my home."

A woman then faded into view. A fairly tall woman with long flowing strawberry blonde hair that reached past her shoulders, and fair skin. She had on a peculiar egg-shaped ornamental hat with a back veil covering her hair reaching near the bottom of her back. She had a long toga-like dress that seems to appear to have been worn in the time of Ancient Greece. She had a sash that reached from her right shoulder, all the way diagonally down to her left hip, and her sleeves only went up to her halfway through her biceps. The dress also showed a generous amount of cleavage of her modest breasts, all the while appearing to be hovering in place since she didn't have any kind of shoes or footwear on her feet.

The woman's face looked familiar, however... Kirito's eyes widened as it came to him. "S-Sachi?"

"Not anymore Kirito," Minerva said with a sad smile on her face. "I am Minerva now and I am going to help you save the Virtual World from the Isu Race."

Minerva then began shrinking and was soon the size of a pixie. Wings came out of her back and she flew into Kirito's chest pocket.

"What do you guys mean by saving the virtual world?" Kirito asked, looking down at his breast pocket.

"The Isu are powerful AI, Kirito," Kayaba said. "And they have a goal to rule over the virtual worlds. They are planning something big. Something that I have no idea of. And might not until it's too late."

"So how do we stop them?" Kirito asked with a small frown. "If they are that powerful, then they must be stopped."

"They can only be slowed down Kirito," Minerva's head poked up out of the pocket. "They are too powerful and have already taken control using the Templars in this game."

"So take out the Templars, we take out the Izu," Kirito stated. "Sounds like a plan."

"But they will be able to relog back in," Kayaba said. "Making this mission so much harder."

Kirito's eyes widened as he got an idea.

"Is there a way to trace their real location through their death in-game?" he asked the SAO creator and Minerva.

"I can begin an algorithm that will backtrace their death to their real-world location in real-time," Minerva stated. "That way you can save this world and destroy the corruption in your world."

Kirito smirked. He was starting to like this digital imprint of Sachi.

"In the meantime, however," Kirito opened up his map and pinged the nearby village. "I'll see if there are any forges in the village to get some weapons and some old gear."

Kirito took off running leaving Kayaba behind. Kayaba then smiled sadly, before fading away as if he was never there.

Chapter 9: Old Friends, New Targets